Bikinis and Board-shorts

What do you see in the pictures above? Two people at the beach, right? Well, many people I know would say that she (Selena Gomez – if you were unaware) needs to “cover up.” But what about him (Zac Efron?) Why doesn’t he need to cover up? Just look at those glistening abs! Why shouldn’t he put a shirt on?

Now, when I said to look at his “glistening abs”, did you think that sounded funny? Probably. Because apparently male bodies are funny and female bodies are always sexual. If I had pointed out her legs or her stomach or especially her upper body (boobs!) you wouldn’t be laughing.

I’m not here to give you some crazy rant about female VS male sexuality because I don’t know enough about the subject and do not want to say anything misinformed. I do, however, want to tell you a story of something that happened to me.

Two years ago I went on my first retreat with the church. This was before I was really involved and was not a leader yet. Well, when I got the “To Pack” list, it said that we were not allowed to wear bikinis. We had to either wear shorts and a t-shirt over it, or wear a one-piece (I don’t really understand why a one-piece was okay because those can still be pretty revealing, but whatever.)

Guys, however, did not have to cover up their chests. Do you know why? Because apparently us girls are not aroused by the male body. Apparently, we are not “visual.” Well that’s pretty funny! Because when I tried looking up pictures of Zac Efron, I got TONS of responses for “Zac Efron Shirtless.” Just try it with any male celebrity. Who do you think is looking up those pictures? I can only assume, having known many teenage girls, that many of the viewers are…well…teenage girls.

At the time of this church retreat, I had a boyfriend. And he had a nice body. And I liked it.
OH NO THERE MUST BE SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME!
Why didn’t my boyfriend have to cover himself up? Why would they assume that seeing a guy with a nice body wouldn’t make ME “stumble?!” Or any of the other girls going? Why is this so one-sided? Why aren’t girls allowed to be attracted to the male body?

Now, I do understand where they are coming from. This is a church retreat and of course there are different standards. They don’t want butts hanging out and boobs flying all over the place. And that is totally fine. I’ll cover up. But, hey man, so should you.

I actually brought this up at the time to a friend of mine who also worked a church. I asked why he thought it was okay that I had to “cover up” when my boyfriend and all the other guys didn’t have to?He said it was because girls don’t think like that.